West Ham and Newham Council will meet the board of the Olympic Park Legacy Company on Friday to make their pitch for the Stratford stadium, reports the Newham Recorder. The Hammers and the council have made a joint bid for tenancy of the £538million stadium after 2012 and they are confident that they will convince the board to put them on the shortlist.
"We've said all along that we feel we have the most competitive and effective bid for the future use of the stadium," said West Ham's Olympic Stadium negotiator Ian Tompkins.
"We are meeting with the OLPC on Friday and we will be hoping to convince them."
The tender process has been put back a week, but the shortlist is expected to be announced next week, with the West Ham bid expected to be on it.
However, there is still plenty of objections among fans at the prospect of a move away from Upton Park, something that Tompkins is convinced will change.
"It is not the time to talk about polls or opposition," he said. "What we say to the fans is we would like them to keep an open mind.
"If we get on the shortlist then we can begin to put together a clearer idea of what we want to do in Stratford.
"Part of that will be tours of the stadium for fans so they can see what sort of a facility it is.
"Then we can get into the details of how many toilets it is going to have, how people are going to get there, what sort of ticketing prices we will have, all the little things that are so important."
